Bethesda Softworks - Fallout 4 Planned

August 4th, 2008, 13:57

Is this a surprise to anyone? Eurogamer and 1Up are both pointing out some comments Pete Hines made to different sites. From Eurogamer:

"The whole reason we went out and acquired the licence and that we now own Fallout is that we clearly intended to make more than one," Hines told TVG. "This is not something we're going to do once and then go away and never do it again.
"When that will be or how long that will be god only knows, but we acquired it specifically because we wanted to own it and develop it and work on it like we do with The Elder Scrolls," he added.

Haha I bet the hardcore fallout fans are ripping their hairs off when they hear this.

— “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” - Maya Angelou
"Those who dont read history are destined to repeat it."– Edmund Burke

I don't think they're as cynical as that. I get a feeling they're genuinely giving it their best shot. I also get a feeling it just might not be enough… just like George Lucas's best shot at developing his very own license wasn't enough, for Episodes I-III, that is.

Aye, I see no reason to buy the Fallout franchise if the developers are not actually fans of the series. They could've made a new setting similar to it if they simply wanted to make Oblivion with guns - the Bethesda name is much, much bigger than Fallout.

I certainly do. They wanted a shooting RPG license to fill the generation-long gap between TES installments. Is/was there some other famous futuristic RPG license for sale? Bethesda just needed an RPG license with guns to pad out TES releases, as they are incapable of creating a new IP (all the TES creators are long gone).

They need to do almost no R&D to make their Fallouts; it's all done for TES. They'll be based on the TES 4/5/6 codebase with a different stat system, a pause feature, and (supposedly) a slightly tweaked dialog system. Otherwise it's the same continuous combat engine, animation and collision system, world-zone system, map, compass, AI, and of course graphics. It's cheaper, much, much cheaper than creating something original, which isn't something they do well, or at all.

Originally Posted by pnutz
I certainly do. They wanted a shooting RPG license to fill the generation-long gap between TES installments. Is/was there some other famous futuristic RPG license for sale? Bethesda just needed an RPG license with guns to pad out TES releases, as they are incapable of creating a new IP (all the TES creators are long gone).

They need to do almost no R&D to make their Fallouts; it's all done for TES. They'll be based on the TES 4/5/6 codebase with a different stat system, a pause feature, and (supposedly) a slightly tweaked dialog system. Otherwise it's the same continuous combat engine, animation and collision system, world-zone system, map, compass, AI, and of course graphics. It's cheaper, much, much cheaper than creating something original, which isn't something they do well, or at all.

Synergies are certainly a reason why they wanted a second full franchise. Now they can spend 4 years on the full games and another one, overlapping, on add-ons. If they release the full games every two years, followed by the add-on, they have one major release per year, not counting conversion and DLC. The advantages are obvious.

That does not, however, explain why they couldn't make up their own IP that was very similar to Fallout. There's a ton of extra costs involved when using an existing IP - research on the setting (reading through thousands of pages of documentation, re-playing the original games, etc), paying Interplay to use the Fallout name, entering various dialogues and discussions with previous developers, set up meetings with Interplay on what can/can not be done in the Fallout universe and so on and so forth.

There are very few cases of people getting sued for copying as a developer, so just making a post-apacolyptic RPG setting would've been less work, less costs and overall less problems.

Yes, there is a certain amount of "free PR" by making a new Fallout game, but not enough to pay the price of the franchise - any game developed by Bethesda would be covered by everyone in the gaming world anyway (just imagine the game magazines going on and on about "OOOOH!! A mysterious futuristic RPG by Bethesda!! When will we get to learn more?!"). No, there has to be something more - some sort of affection for the Fallout universe. From a business point of view, it just doesn't pay off.

Game reviewer Ive known for 15 years is currently doing lenghty preview of fallout3 - he is actually playing the game and its looking really good. They will cover the dialog system too in the coming days. Too bad the preview is not in english.

But I have to say it would be fun to see if f3 was actually a good game and all the unreserved angst the fanatics have thrown over it during the year(s) proved to be totally baseless.

— “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” - Maya Angelou
"Those who dont read history are destined to repeat it."– Edmund Burke

Originally Posted by Maylander
That does not, however, explain why they couldn't make up their own IP that was very similar to Fallout. There's a ton of extra costs involved when using an existing IP - research on the setting (reading through thousands of pages of documentation, re-playing the original games, etc), paying Interplay to use the Fallout name, entering various dialogues and discussions with previous developers, set up meetings with Interplay on what can/can not be done in the Fallout universe and so on and so forth.

There are very few cases of people getting sued for copying as a developer, so just making a post-apacolyptic RPG setting would've been less work, less costs and overall less problems.

Yes, there is a certain amount of "free PR" by making a new Fallout game, but not enough to pay the price of the franchise - any game developed by Bethesda would be covered by everyone in the gaming world anyway (just imagine the game magazines going on and on about "OOOOH!! A mysterious futuristic RPG by Bethesda!! When will we get to learn more?!"). No, there has to be something more - some sort of affection for the Fallout universe. From a business point of view, it just doesn't pay off.

Well, we all know how much they paid for the franchise, ~$7million, right? That's the cash cost. As for the rest, I think the "cost" of researching and reading up on Fallout is more than balanced by someone else not only doing all that writing and other work, but by the fact that it's already "play-tested", ie. we all know it's popular and a winner with a whole bunch of people.

As for the cash cost alone, I think they'll make that back on FO3 three times over at least.

Originally Posted by Maylander
That does not, however, explain why they couldn't make up their own IP that was very similar to Fallout. There's a ton of extra costs involved when using an existing IP - research on the setting (reading through thousands of pages of documentation, re-playing the original games, etc), paying Interplay to use the Fallout name, entering various dialogues and discussions with previous developers, set up meetings with Interplay on what can/can not be done in the Fallout universe and so on and so forth.

They haven't made a new IP since the Elder Scrolls lore, which hasn't been expanded since Daggerfall in 1996. And all the people who created it are gone. They have since only brought breadth to TES since no one there is capable of adding depth or creating something new in these 12 years. The next big thing in RPGs is/was futuristic and modern settings with guns. Can a company with (currently) no experience in creating new IP come up with a winning new gun-based setting to support a $10 million production plus sequels?

Or would they buy an IP, one that could lend itself to their first-person, exploration based game engine? The game area would have to be continuous (per engine requirements). It would have to be empty for the most part (per design requirements; scattered communities and numerous rural dungeons). A continuous modern city full of people would be unfeasible. A post-apocalyptic environment (set in a comparably "dense" area, like a former city) is one of the few settings compatible with this big, empty, continuous, gun-toting game world.

While I wish they had not bought the franchise, it makes obvious business sense that they did. But please don't try to spin this as if Fallout needed Bethesda.

Originally Posted by pnutzThey haven't made a new IP since the Elder Scrolls lore, which hasn't been expanded since Daggerfall in 1996. And all the people who created it are gone. They have since only brought breadth to TES since no one there is capable of adding depth or creating something new in these 12 years. The next big thing in RPGs is/was futuristic and modern settings with guns. Can a company with (currently) no experience in creating new IP come up with a winning new gun-based setting to support a $10 million production plus sequels?

Or would they buy an IP, one that could lend itself to their first-person, exploration based game engine? The game area would have to be continuous (per engine requirements). It would have to be empty for the most part (per design requirements; scattered communities and numerous rural dungeons). A continuous modern city full of people would be unfeasible. A post-apocalyptic environment (set in a comparably "dense" area, like a former city) is one of the few settings compatible with this big, empty, continuous, gun-toting game world.

While I wish they had not bought the franchise, it makes obvious business sense that they did. But please don't try to spin this as if Fallout needed Bethesda.

You are actually wrong here…they made a game called redguard which was a spinoff of the elder scrolls….wasn't great….wasn't horrible…just was.

To say fallout did not need Bethesda is like saying lets not ever have a sequel because thats what would have happened.

If you go to their wiki they have also published alot of non rpg games as well….

I thought that after Fallout 3's release, they were going to donate the license to RPGCodex…

Rofl ;-)

Originally Posted by Prime Junta
I don't think they're as cynical as that. I get a feeling they're genuinely giving it their best shot. I also get a feeling it just might not be enough… just like George Lucas's best shot at developing his very own license wasn't enough, for Episodes I-III, that is.

With the big difference that George Lucas actually INVENTED the SW IP. He could do whatever he wanted in the sequels including introducing ridiculous gungans or whatever they were called and it'd still be "genuine Star Wars". That's the privilege of the creator. I'd probably be put in jail if I managed to spray-paint over the Monalisa, but if Da Vinci somehow rose from the dead and did it himself that's his right.

Point is Bethesda are not the minds behind the original Fallouts. They got to do the sequel because they had the highest bid when Interplay's CEO Hervé Caen decided to sell the IP. That's it. They could have hired former devs who worked on F1 and F2 but turned their application down.

And now the "journalists" are praising F3 in their previews for being a lot like "a post-apoc Oblivion". Yet what they don't seem to grasp is that what may be a compliment to them -surely because Oblivion was a commercial success- isn't necessarily a compliment for what the original inventors of the IP tried to create.

So yes they're probably "genuine at giving it their best shot" but the key word here is "their". Their previous commercial success allowed them to take total ownership of the franchise and they also decided that also meant they should impose THEIR view of what a new Fallout game should be like. Yes it's probably in their best interest, yes it's probably going to sell a lot, but where George Lucas could do whatever he wants with his own IP, Bethesda is just raping someone's else artistic creation.